Listening through Under a Blackened
Sky's EP, I realized something about one of the more mainstream
outfits in metal today, DevilDriver is surprisingly progressive.
Quickly sampling a handful of songs from the more mainstream metal
acts in my library, I noticed a similar trend. Here's where I'll stop
to clarify a few things. By “mainstream” I'm referencing music
with broader appeal to the general population. Music which oftens
straddles a line between being classified as hard rock or heavy
metal. Also worth clarifying for the purposes of this review is the
meaning of the term “progressive” in this context. “Proggressive”
refers not to the true progressiveness of the music, but to how
closely the music resembles bands like a dream theater on a shallow
level.
So where does Under a Blackened Sky
fall on the spectrum?
While I would love to be able to
commend Under a Blackened Sky for a brilliant atmosphere like Adeia
creates or bizarre time changes or world class riffs and solos, their
work falls under the latter description of progressive and not the
former. While this doesn't make Under a Blackened Sky a bad band, it
makes their work bland and unexciting when the general direction of
their sound tends towards progressive and melodic metal. I feel that
this may, in part, be a result of the combination of a mushy, bass
heavy recording, a so-so mixing job, and the lack of a vocalist. Its
almost as if the the listener is looking at an uncolored sketch in a
glass case at a museum. The recording sounds distant and dull. With
no energy or vocals to figuratively color the music in, the only
thing keeping Under a Blackened Sky from dissolving into a repetitve
mess is their ability to come up with original, creative riffs.
Were Under a Blackened Sky to re-mix
and apply a few effects to their music, I could see their EP being an
engaging listen, but as it stands, I just can't really appreciate it.
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